As the Raven Flies
by AshaRose
Summary: Sansa goes to the Godswoods to pray for a savior, but mistakes which man was sent to save her. Can they lead her true savior to her before she becomes victim of another political plot? Rating may go up in later chapters.
1. As the Raven Flies

**Disclaimer: **I don't own A Song of Ice and Fire. I make nothing off of this.

Author's note: Chronologically this bit is set after ADwD, but as the Weirwood takes Bran back in time some times, what he sees is meant to accompany Sansa's second narration in ACoK when she goes to the Godswood for the first time.

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**As the Raven Flies**

**Bran**

The best and perhaps oddest thing about the Weirwood Seed Paste was that it tasted differently every time he ate it. It might have made some sense to him had the paste tasted like a food he craved, but more oft than not it tasted of a food he hadn't thought of in months. Thus, Bran never knew quite what to expect. Tonight when he put the paste to his lips he was assaulted by a taste that was all at once sweet and tart. It took him three bites to recognize the flavor: lemon cakes! They'd eaten them often at home for some reason. After a few more nibbled he recalled that lemon cakes had been his sister's favorite. The memory brought a smile to his lips and as he slipped into the Weirwoods among the roots, it came as no shock to him that he was looking at his sister.

The months of constant practice had made it easier for Bran to decide what memories he saw and for how long. He knew now how to look for a specific time or a specific person. Whether he looked for Sansa that night because of the lemon cake paste or whether the paste tasted of lemon cakes because he would see her tonight, Bran didn't know. What he did know was that whatever way influence went, tonight he'd find his sister. It hadn't taken long to locate her in a Godswood in King's Landing.

She'd come running into the holy place with a look of both fear and determination in her deep blue eyes. In all his life, Bran had never seen his sister so sloppily dressed- it looked as if she'd donned her clothing in the dark and without aid. Her slightly rumpled auburn hair added credence to that theory. When Bran's Weirwood eyes settled on his sister's sweet face he noticed how pale and drawn she was. Her eyes bore dark marks beneath them that showed lack of sleep and her lip was swollen and cracked in the middle as if it'd been recently bloodied. A lip like that would have been perfectly in place on their sister Arya's face, but not on Sansa's. Arya was a fighter, but Sansa was ever gentle.

With a wrenching pull deep in his roots, Bran whispered _Sansa, _and stretched his boughs toward her.

Her eyes had darted all around the Godswood looking for danger and finding none. His sister didn't speak, but when she moved and touched the base of the tree, Bran could feel her prayers.

_Help me, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me... _

The girl moved from tree to tree, the same desperate plea in her heart. She was broken and helpless- a condition which Bran knew all about.

It took a great deal of concentration and effort to effect any sort of change, but Bran was determined to help. When he saw his sister whirl around and pull out a blade, he knew times were desperate for her and he had to move quickly. Stretching his spirit from tree to tree, he reached up searchingly into the topmost branches. It took him longer than he wanted to find what he was looking for. Eventually, he felt the dark claws holding one of his upper branches, and he slipped inside the raven. As he'd caught the raven on the tree in this time, he could stay inside the moment with the bird too. The more time Bran spent amongst the weirwoods the more unwound time became for him as well. Yesterday meant little to him and a century ago meant even less. As long as he was in a moment it was his present.

Animals were decidedly less reliable sources of information than trees. Trees were silent observers, but animals formed their own opinions and put a curious slant on things. Still a flying bird observed many things and Bran was able to sort through the bird's brain to pick something useful. He found the image twisted in the bird's head, a dark man who seemed to always be watching his sister. The bird never got close to the man since his towheaded companion was unlikable, but he'd gathered enough of the man's form to spot him from above.

_Now fly._

The bird stretched its wings and took to the air in a graceful rush of dark feathers. After locating the man and landing on a stone wall before him, the raven eyed him up and down. He was leaning up against a wall holding a flagon of wine and looking very much like he world had wronged him again. The scars on his face made him a fearsome sight to behold, and it was obvious to the boy if not to the bird that this man had been drinking. Bran almost decided that this was useless and that birds were a very unreliable source when the man spoke.

"What are you staring at?" came his drunken slur, the scarred side of his mouth twitching.

Bran supposed he could try to get the man to follow him, but _this_ man seemed unlikely to spring up to follow a bird on a whim. Ravens, luckily, had a very rudimentary ability to mimic human sounds and grasp basic speech patterns. Still, they understood little. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Bran searched the bird's brain for any word that might stand out to get this man moving-something that the raven might have overheard more than once. He found it.

"Bird," croaked the raven.

"Yeah," the man rasped back glancing at the raven with his hate filled grey eyes. "Bloody _useless_ bird. Leave a man to drink in peace!"

One word wasn't enough. It was harder to get the bird to say more than one thing, but it was worth the effort if it would help his sister. "Little Bird," came the raven's caw.

This time the man's eyes went wide and he looked down to the flagon in his hands before looking back up to the raven. But in the end his face hardened and his eyes narrowed. "Go on! Get out of her before I decide to take up knife throwing! You'd make a nice fat target!" When he raised the flagon to his lips, the man muttered as if he were cursing. "What would _you_ know of little birds?"

Bran knew he'd struck a cord with the man... he only needed to see it through. He began bobbing up and down chirping. "Little bird. Little bird. Little bird."

"Don't MOCK me!" the man growled fiercely, launching himself half way at the raven.

Bran flew up and only settled back down when the man sat again and brought his flagon to his lips. For a moment, Bran considered leaving and finding someone else, but an instinct that came not from tree or bird but the green sight told him that it had to be _this _man and he had to get through to him at _this _specific moment.

The man before him shook his head and said, "I can't stop what they do to her. No one goes 'gainst the King. Not if he like's his head." After a long draw from his wineskin, he continued. "Me? I don't like my head very much, but I figure it's more use to me and her if it's still on my shoulders."

Stomping a clawed foot impatiently, Bran cawed. He needed to make the man understand even if what he did seemed uncharacteristic for a raven. So he spoke again in his raven's voice adding words to his meager message. "Help Little Bird." Then he flapped his wings insistently to show that he was serious.

The man looked up at him and rubbed a large hand down his face. When he spoke again, he addressed the wine flagon and not the raven. "Think I've had more of you than I thought. Buggering ravens are telling me what to do now!"

Impatience seized Bran as he was quite tired already. In a last futile effort, he flew to the man's head and challenged, "Help Little Bird Now." For good measure he pecked a bit of scalp before taking to the air.

"Seven bloody hells! You buggering raven! I get my hands on you I'm going to pull out all those fucking feathers!" He was on his feet now, coming after the raven, and Bran recognized that this one would tower over most men.

Adjusting his path so that he flew slightly higher, Bran took them back toward the Godswood. He saw his sister fleeing from the wood looking no less distressed and perhaps even more confused. Content that the man would find Sansa, now. Bran cawed one last message. "Help Little Bird. Always!"

The last thing Bran saw was the wide-eyed expression on the man's unfortunate face. The man stopped short at the words with his eyes on the raven and gave a curt nod of his head either in understanding or promise. That was when Sansa, heedless of where she was walking knocked right into the man. Bran wanted to stay and watch the interaction, but he was too tired, and he flew back to his broken body.

It took Bran a few minutes to come back into himself and when he did he turned to look at the three-eyed crow. The man was looking at him with one red eye and his rustling voice came out soft yet strong. "Did your greenseeing show you anything interesting?"

"I saw my sister at King's Landing. She was alone and scared and praying. I wanted to help her and I think I did only..." Bran trailed off and looked confused.

"Yes?" The last greenseer asked with a pointedly knowing smile upon his dry lips.

"Well you said you can't change the _past_ and I've been in enough Weirwoods to know that Sansa isn't at King's Landing anymore. She's somewhere where I can't reach her."

The sound that came out of the three-eyed crow's mouth might have been a laugh, but Bran couldn't be sure. "The past cannot be changed anymore than you can make people do something they wouldn't choose to do on their own."

Greenseeing was a mess of riddles and frustrations. With an angry sigh Bran pouted, "I don't understand. I was in the Weirwood, I hopped into a raven, I flew to a man who would help my sister and told him to get moving! He heard me! I know he did!"

"Tell me," asked the Three-Eyed Crow, "Did you know this man?"

"Well, yeah," Bran's voice was quiet and uncertain when he added, "It was the Hound."

"Tell me," the rustling voice was almost mocking, "Is that the man you would have sent to save your sister?"

"No!" Bran shot out right away, "He was mean and scary. He's Joffery's _dog!"_

"And yet, that is the only man who will save your sister." Bran stayed quiet pondering this and his mentor was quiet for a long while too. When at last he spoke, his voice sounded weary to Bran. "What you saw was a memory of my own making. I was the one who sent Clegane to your sister. I watched them both for a while with my raven eyes and when your sister came to the Godswood to pray, I couldn't help but answer her. Though, I am afraid that your sister didn't realize Clegane was the one sent to help. She was blind to the truth. She put her trust in another and was lost to us."

This news distressed Bran greatly. He didn't like the way the greenseer said lost. He remained quiet as the other man continued talking. "I thought he was lost too until recently when I found him again. It will be your task to find him and lead him to your sister."

"But you said we didn't know where Sansa is!" Bran whined in aggravation.

"Ah!" his mentor said, "We might not know where she _is _but we know where she _isn't." _ When Bran looked at him blankly, the three-eyed crow spoke again. "Imagine you are standing in the center of a room so that you have three of its corners in your vision, but you cannot move to see the fourth. If you know someone is hiding in the room, but you can't see them, where must they be?"

Bran's eyes went wide as he said, "In the fourth corner!"

His mentor smiled. "She isn't in Riverrun and she didn't go back to Winterfell. We've checked along the roads and in the forests. It is unlikely that she went south and we only saw one of your sisters at the ports to the free cities. Where might Sansa be?"

"The Vale!" Bran exclaimed suddenly. Back when he was learning to locate specific Weirwoods, Bran had learned that the Godswood in the Vale wouldn't grow Weirwoods on top of the mountain. It must have been a good guess because his mentor looked pleased.

"This is the conclusion that I have come to as well. Can you do it Bran? Can you lead him to your sister and mayhap save them both?"

Bran's nod was full of grim determination.

"Good," said the three-eyed crow. "Tomorrow you will learn how to stretch your influence."

Bran smiled. The ordeal at Winterfell with Theon Turncloak had left him feeling less than useless. And up until now, greenseeing seemed useless as well. What good was it to look and not be able to do anything? It would feel _so_ good to do something for a change- to help someone. He couldn't save Winterfell, but he _would_ save Sansa.

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Author's note: I began this as a one shot but decided to elongate it a bit and make at least a few more chapters. I intend to do them in POVs of other characters as well. I hope you like it so far! More to come soon!


	2. Feathers and Flames

**Feathers and Flames**

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**The Grave Digger**

The stony gravel and dirt scraped along the length of his shovel creating a sort of rhythmic pattern to his endless digging. For every grave he dug, a face came to his mind- not the face of the man he would bury, but the face of a man he'd slain. It was wartime and the number of graves needing to be dug was endless. So, it seemed, was the list of men he'd killed back when he'd been nothing but a hate filled dog that lived for slaying. He couldn't even remember all the faces.

The Hound had known death, reveled in it. Even his destrier was called Stranger, the bringer of death- which was true considering just who rode that horse. Now Sandor himself was seeped in death, but not in the sweet moment of the kill when he watched blood and life slip from his enemy. Sandor was now in charge of housing those who were already dead. These were men he'd had no part in killing, men who were simply gone. They were cold bodies bereft of breath and blood both, men who would no longer hug their children or make love to their wives. The Hound had always been too keen to see the worst in people. When looking upon a dead body, the Hound would have thought with a grimace that it was one less man to bother the whores.

But that changed the day the bodies started washing up from the Saltpans. Men, women and children alike floated to the Quiet Isle. In the blind rage of the fight the Hound had never known the difference between those he cut down. In the still cold of death, Sandor was forced to look at the dead faces of the children and the women who didn't have the arms or strength to protect themselves. He was forced to look at the men who were not raised for fighting as he had been. The Hound might have called them useless, but Sandor had to recognize that these were the traders who saw wine and food come into Westeros, the smiths who made the weapons he would wield, the farmers who grew the food he would eat. How had the Hound thought them useless? The answer was simple; the Hound didn't _think,_ he _obeyed. _And in the moments between orders, in the moments where thoughts might try to creep up on him, the Hound made sure to be drunk out of his wits.

But he wasn't the Hound anymore. The Elder Brother had found him at the moment of his death and had not let him die. The Hound was meant to die. Not only was he wounded, but he had no reason left to live. There were no orders left to obey; he had no master; the man he lived to kill was gone. Sandor had accepted this, but the Elder Brother, held him when he was feverish, and tended the wounds that no maester by right would have had the ability to heal. After binding up the wounds, the Elder Brother ripped the Hound right out of Sandor.

Maybe it was only because he was sick with fever at the time, but Sandor had _seen_ it, a snarling black creature that tried to bite and kill the Elder Brother the moment it had burst forth from Sandor's chest. On a good day, it would have succeeded, but on this day it was too wounded to fight properly. That hadn't stopped the creature from trying, but the Elder Brother didn't attack the creature openly or even defend himself. He simply sat by Sandor's side praying and singing those damn hymns while the beast paced back and forth biting and striking, sinking his teeth into the man's arms and snapping at the man's throat. Sandor watched the snarling black beast attempt to savage the old man until, the Elder Brother began singing a different hymn that caught Sandor's attention. It was the Mother's Song- a tune that had been burned into Sandor's soul as surely as his brother's hatred had been burned onto his face. The great black beast whimpered and retreated licking it's wounds while Sandor lay prone and closed his fever-wild eyes as the song washed over him and put him at peace. But it wasn't the low baritone of the Elder Brother's voice that Sandor heard but the soft chirping of a sweet little bird.

When Sandor woke up, the Elder Brother had his head bent in prayer, but his robes were torn and there were angry red gashes on his arms and face. Sandor tried to sit up and look for any sign of the creature that was responsible, but it was gone. "It's dead," the Elder Brother had informed him, "Buried right there beneath it's helm. You, Sandor Clegane, are free- free to be your own master and make your own choices. If you would reclaim your life, come with me to the Quiet Isle and let yourself heal from what that vile creature has done to you. On the Isle, you can figure out what it means to be Sandor Clegane."

There was nowhere else to go anyhow, so he got up and followed the Elder Brother to the island. First they went to a place called the Hermit Hole where he told the Brother the worst of his sins and what had happened to him since deserting. In the end his face was wrapped in wool, and he was fitted with the robes of a novice and given the task of digging graves while he atoned for all the death he had caused.

It was an easy enough task even with his bad leg. Truthfully, he didn't mind the leg. It was one more reminder of the difference between Sandor and the Hound. With his face covered and his now shuffling gait he felt almost a different man, a man who dug graves and thought about the dead and how he'd almost become one of them. Maybe he should have become one of them, but that wolf-bitch Arya had made it clear: he didn't deserve the mercy of a quick death. The Hound might be gone, but Sandor remained to account for those sins. And the first task, according to the Elder Brother, was digging graves and facing death. Something told Sandor that there was a lot of atoning left to do.

The shovel scraped into the ground, marking the start of the third grave. It was then that he noticed the raven. When the creature had gotten there Sandor couldn't say, but it seemed content to sit there watching him with its knowing eyes. Lowering his eyebrows to scowl, Sandor cast his eyes back to his grave digging, He had no love of ravens; damn things had a habit of finding him in his worst moments and demanding the impossible.

At first, Sandor ignored the bird. He told himself that it was _just _a bird and that its presence meant _nothing_ to him. But when he had finished the third grave and begun on the fourth, the bird was still there cocking its head and fixing him with its shrewd eyes. Sandor's jaw clenched tightly in frustration, but Sandor went about his grave digging just the same. All through the fourth grave those black eyes bore into him while he kept his own gray eyes trained decidedly on the dirt he was shoveling.

When he climbed out of the fourth grave to begin the fifth, the bird was _still _there looking at him with those _damned_ accusing black eyes. By now he had realized that this bird was not here on a whim; the damned thing had business with him, come to demand more impossible things. He had a good idea what, too.

Ravens decided to bother him in King's Landing as well, coming up with their critical eyes and telling him to help the little bird. But the damned ravens should have gone to someone else. He was sick to death of _birds _in general. Either the ravens were mad or just plain stupid to keep asking _him._ Sandor couldn't rightly save someone who was frightened of him!

Almost as if it could read his thoughts, the raven twisted his head astutely as if challenging the point. The damned bird was _right_ of course. It was his fault she was frightened of him. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her, so pretty and proper with her courtesies and sweet little words. She was such a beautifully naive child with her head full of songs and she was going to willing give herself to that monster of a prince. He hated her for it and for the empty words she tried to feed him.

Had she been any other girl with a shred of licentiousness or wickedness it wouldn't have mattered, but Sansa Stark believed that all men were good and honorable. She'd even wasted her prim politeness on Joffrey's dog. The Hound hated every pretty little word that spewed from her pretty little lips and somewhere underneath it all Sandor hated himself for not being a man who could delight in her sweet little voice. He'd tried to warn her before it was too late, tried to make her see that not everything was good and noble in the world. His own face was proof enough of that. But as pretty as Sansa's words were, the Hound's words were gruff and relentless. She _frustrated_ him and he wanted to shake her and wake her up from this stupid dream world of hers. In the end he'd only frightened her. But even when he'd frightened her terribly, she still acted like there was something good in him after all. She'd refused to believe he was just a dog, and he'd hated her for that too. It had made him doubt as well and a man like him couldn't afford doubt.

The Hound hated her, just like he'd hated everyone else. Hatred was all he knew, all he was capable of. But no amount of hatred could keep Sansa Stark from getting underneath the Hound's skin. She had persisted in treating him like a person and he'd persisted frightening her even if he only wanted to open her eyes.

On the day Joffrey ordered her hit for the first time, her eyes had glazed over with hatred and desperation and the Hound realized she meant to push the King off the parapet and possibly kill herself in the process. The Hound didn't truly know how to give compassion, but he understood her desperate rage well enough. It was simple then for Sandor to move forward and stop her by pressing a handkerchief to her bloody lip. He saw the confusion in her eyes in that moment, but it was no matter. He wouldn't let the hate consume her the way it had him. Gregor's treatment had turned him into the hateful creature called the Hound; he'd make sure Sansa stayed herself a sweet little bird.

That at least he seemed to be able to do and he got her to understand that if she gave them the songs they _wanted_ to hear that she'd be spared at least some of the beatings. It was a lesson that Sandor had learned himself when he was just a child. Sansa had learned faster than young Sandor. _ My father was a traitor_. _My mother and brother are traitors. _ _I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey_, Still, every time he heard her utter those sweet little chirps it cut him a little deeper, cracking straight through his thick armor and piercing the Hound to even reach Sandor underneath.

By the night of the Blackwater, his armor had become so cracked that he looked out at the Bay with Sandor's own eyes and was actually afraid, as afraid as he'd been on that night years ago when Gregor found him with the wooden knight. The Hound was afraid of nothing, not even death. He'd faced battles with flames before even if they were natural flames. Nothing was natural about the Blackwater Battle, especially not the flames and definitely not the Hound. Something about letting in that Stark girl in brought Sandor to the surface and he looked at those unnatural flames and he'd known terror. He saw his death out there- a horrible twisted agony of fire licking at his skin while it melted away from his bones and cooked him in his own armor. It put into sharp relief everything he was and what he was doing. There was no point to him fighting this battle to become one of a thousand burning men for a king he hated and a city he cared nothing about. So he left.

And like the bloody fucking ravens always told him, he tried to help the little bird.

But when he went to take Sansa away, she was still frightened of him. She didn't know, couldn't know then, the difference between Sandor and the Hound. He couldn't blame her; he'd gotten so drunk himself that night he could scarcely tell the difference between the two. She'd made sure she finished cracking his armor that night though when he drunkenly pressed his dagger to her pretty white throat and told her to sing that fucking song. He expected her to sing of Florian. The Hound would have enjoyed the irony of it-her singing of something he could never be, but she sang instead the Mother's Song. Her gentle voice moved through him not to cut down the Hound like Florian's song would have, but to reach out to Sandor underneath. For a moment he was a child, younger and more frightened than she was herself. In the next moment he realized that he was a grown man with his dagger at the throat of the only person he could stand in this fucking hellhole. His dagger dropped then and her hand found its way to his cheek. No matter how much he frightened her, she always treated him like a person. She saw him then, he knew. She felt his hot tears streaming over a bloodied cheek and looked not at the Hound, but at Sandor. And being exposed like that was more terrifying than even the wildfire.

He'd fled then, but not before tearing off his white cloak. Even now he still wondered why. Was it to show that he wouldn't protect anyone if he couldn't protect her? Was he throwing away some part of him that he hated-the part that served Joffrey with no question? Was it a promise to come back for her once he could be the sort of man who could protect a woman? Was it because he had nothing else to leave her to remember him by? Was it because of those ravens who'd nagged him to help her? He didn't rightly know, but it had seemed important to his wine-addled mind at the time.

When he left King's Landing, he drank. He was aimless with nowhere to go. He tried to be the Hound still, but if there was any proof that he wasn't it was when he was declared innocent by the Brotherhood without Banners. The Hound could never have been proved innocent. By some folly the lost, drunken creature was innocent. He wasn't the Hound, but he wasn't Sandor either, not yet. Not until the bloody fucking Elder Brother ripped the Hound from his body and told him to find something else to live for. Still, he wondered if the Brother would have been able to pull the Hound out at all if it hadn't been for the damage Sansa Stark had done to that rough exterior.

Is that why the raven had come for him? Did it think he owed her something for this second chance? He owed it to her to take her out of King's Landing, but he couldn't. He owed it to her to keep her safe, but he left her for the Imp! Bugger the Imp and bugger the ravens too!

The raven had come to judge him for a failure of his past life that he was trying to forget. A life so full of hatred that he had even hated the one person he truly gave a damn about. The bird still stood there silently watching as Sandor finished the eighth grave. He could tell somehow that this raven knew his secret too. It knew that he didn't hate Sansa Stark at all. That he wanted to hold her and protect her and keep her _safe,_ but he had failed even in that.

Eight graves he had dug for the eight bodies that washed up on the Isle over night. Eight graves and he was done, but the damned bird wasn't done with him. He was so annoyed, but he didn't rage. Rage was something that belonged to the Hound not to Sandor. So instead Sandor threw his shovel to the ground petulantly and turned to make certain none of the other Brothers were close enough to hear him. He was supposed to be in a stage of silent contrition after all.

"Don't you do it," he warned the dark creature in a dangerous low rasp muffled by the wool that was wrapped around his face. "I know you are thinking it. But don't you say it! Don't call her name and demand my help! I tried, but I can't fucking save her!" The bird merely looked at him with a sort of piqued curiosity, as if to suggest there was more he could be doing than digging graves.

"I can't help her!" Sandor insisted. "She doesn't even _want_ myhelp." His voice got quieter as his eyes turned downcast as he whispered the last part of the problem, "And I wouldn't even know where to look." Then he fixed his eyes back up on the large black bird. "So don't you do it! Don't come to me and demand my help when you sit there and do nothing. Don't you say her name!"

And as if the raven were only waiting for confirmation that Sansa was on his mind, it cocked it's head to the side and opened its sharp beak to utter the two words Sandor really didn't want to hear. "Little bird."

With a hushed sound that was more an exasperated cry than the growl he wanted it to be, Sandor turned and went back to the home of the Brothers. He had enough problems without adding the judgmental fucking ravens to the list.

* * *

**Bran**

With raven's eyes he watched the man who _should_ be saving his sister walk away from him unheeded. Disappointment filled him. Bran thought he would show up as a raven and the man would immediately know why he was there and follow him to the Vale. They would find Sansa together. He knew Sansa didn't go with the man _before _but if Bran could let her know that _he _was the one leading them together, her beloved little brother, surely she would listen and follow this man to safety. She'd even have Winterfell back before the worst of winter set in.

Of course it wasn't that _easy_. After watching the man tensely digging graves for the better part of the day, Bran realized this task might be too much for him. He had power, but little stamina and less idea of how to wield it. His mentor had a thousand eyes and one. At best Bran had eight. The Three-Eyed Crow could be in hundreds of creatures at once, but Bran could only be in three. It was hard for him to remain so _split _for very long, though. All of Bran was in the raven today, as he knew it might take some time.

Once a creature accepted him and he was able to slip into it's skin, Bran could find that creature again anywhere it went. But it was different when doing it for the first time. He would have to follow a path along one of the Weirwoods until he found the proper creature. This morning his adventure had started in a nearby Godswood and involved a long flight to the island. _I'll need you again_, he told the bird. _Can you wait for me here? I will come to you again soon! _

He hoped the bird would stay near the Isle since he'd need to come back and try again. As the isle was devoted to the Seven, there was no Godswood for him to seek there. It hadn't taken too long to find Sandor Clegane. Since the woods were awash with stories. Interestingly enough, he'd learned some interesting information from Arya's wolf Nymeria. Bran couldn't slip into _that _wolf because she was still so connected with Arya, but Summer had a connection with all of his siblings and could understand bits and pieces of what they were going through. It was in Summer's skin that he felt Nymeria's anger over the _Dog. _ It had been easy after that.

Bran had naively thought that _finding _Clegane would be the hard part of his task. He had remembered the Hound from the visit to Winterfell, and even if Bran's memory of that time was slightly fuzzy, he knew the Hound was a man of _action_. The man he saw on the Isle of the Brothers was not the same man he'd seen in Winterfell or in King's Landing. He was still rough and bigger than most men, but there was something different about him too. Birds sensed things differently than humans, so sometimes it was hard for Bran to rightly make sense of it. It would come with practice, his mentor had said. But that didn't help him get the Hound moving.

It made Bran so angry! They needed to _help _his sister and this man wouldn't _go_. The desire to simply slip into the Hound's skin and save Sansa himself had been immense, but Bran knew _this _man wouldn't have accepted him the way Hodor begrudgingly did. The encounter would likely mean death for one or both of them. Bran didn't much wish to taste his first death so soon, and if the Hound died, there was no one left to save his sister.

When Bran was back in the cave rubbing his long shaggy hair out of his tired eyes, Leaf had prodded around and told him to be patient. Sagely, she whispered, "Men who rush off to meet death, find it!" Eventually Bran understood that a thoughtful, guarded Hound was better than the reckless_, drunken_ one he'd encountered back at King's Landing.

For now, Bran would have to watch them both and decide on a better strategy. Bran didn't realize how exhausted he was until he laid down to listened to one of Meera's tales The next thing he knew, Leaf was waking him and telling him it was time to go to back to the Weirwoods. He hadn't heard one word that Meera had said.

In order to find something useful, tonight he would watch his sister's prayers. As he sat down with his bowl of Weirwood seed paste, thinking about answering prayers a strange notion came to him.

In a meek voice he looked to his mentor and wide-eyed asked, "Are we _gods_?"

The rustle of the leaves and the old man's chest suggested either mirth or mockery, Bran wasn't quite certain. "Look at me, Bran. I am dying and will be dead eventually. One day a long time from now, you will grow old and die too. Gods do not die. We are simply emissaries of those who granted us this power. We are the eyes in the forest and the whispers in the wind. In our own manner, we protectors of the old ways. Your mother followed the, Seven." Bran nodded even though the old man hadn't meant it as a question. "We might be more like to the Septons in her faith, listening to people's prayers and doing what is in our mortal power to help. Do you understand the difference, Bran?"

Bran nodded with a pensive expression and a look at his own useless legs. Some things were beyond their power, "We can only listen and try to help, but we can't just fix things like Gods can. We help people to help themselves."

The rustle of leaves accompanied his mentor's nod. "There are sometimes when it is easy to help, and sometimes when it is hard. There are some people who will pray, but who do not listen for their answer. For everyone who you might help, there is another who still suffers. There are some people you will try to help and who you will not be able to save. There are some people you will not want to help that you must save anyhow. Gods do not know failure, but you will and it will be overwhelming at first. You must learn to accept the bad with the good."

Bran's head swam with the implications and he suddenly felt unsteady. If what the three-eyed crow said was true then what did it all mean? "What's the point then?" he asked with all the belligerence his ten years allowed.

He couldn't see the other's face from where he sat next to the man, but he could _feel _the knowing smirk radiating from him. It occurred to Bran then that this man had had the same thought long time ago. "Because, Bran, sometimes when you save one person, they in turn will save _thousands_."

Letting this information sink in he suddenly felt responsible for a great deal. The Three-eyed Crow had told him that he lived on to teach Bran how to wield his powers, but one day Bran would sit here on his own making decisions that impacted thousands of thousands. Suddenly Bran felt very small and very shaken. "What if I can't do it?" he asked not liking the quiver in his own voice.

"Sometimes," the man replied with simple honesty, "You won't."

Something began to creep up into his throat and he struggled to keep it down. "But what about _Sansa!_" he blurted out.

"That remains to be seen. But it gives you great incentive to learn and try. You can save her, if you are strong." The leaves rustled again and Bran knew that his mentor had slipped into his trees and the conversation was over.

With grim determination, Bran accepted the Weirwood seed past from Leaf wondering as the initially bitter taste twisted in his mouth and became a succulent feast of too many flavors to pin down just one. He'd be back in King's Landing tonight, he knew. Sansa would tell him what he needed to know.

* * *

Author's Note: Hey guys! Thank you for the positive response to the first chapter! I am happy that other people are interested in seeing the story unfold from Bran's perspective. Sandor and Sansa will get POVs too, but there will be a lot of Bran. I know this chapter kind of went back to the past (or reflections of it), but now that is out of the way, we can get onto the meat of the story. I felt I had to address a few things before we could move on. :)

A note on Sandor's "healing" read into it what you will and only what you will. We have learned that the Brothers on the Quiet Isle can heal things that even maester's can't. Sandor's wounds were bad enough that Arya though him as good as dead. We are only getting Sandor's fevered point of view on the incident. The Elder Brother knows the truth of the matter, but he isn't telling. I will say this... in this story at least he doesn't have the powers of a Red Priest so there is no "revival." He relied on his skills and his prayers to do his healing. I don't intend the Elder to use "magic" or anything of the like. Hope that clears some stuff up.

In the next chapter we can look forward to Sansa. (And of course more Bran) :)


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